Had to read several paragraphs i--and really resent that--to find definition of term in headline of article: "The Rage of the Incels." Incel means involuntarily celibate. Must number myself in that number as, first, nursing homes offer few chances for privacy, and, two, most people view persons in wheelchairs as pitiful and not as sexual beings.

Dammit, just my legs don't work; everything else works tolerably well, for a sixty year old male.

And who knew so many sexual variants exist among humans? Sure, I know what LGBTQ means from research, but things have gotten even more complicated.

Incel stands for “involuntarily celibate,” but there are many people who would like to have sex and do not. (The term was coined by a queer Canadian woman, in the nineties.) Incels aren’t really looking for sex; they’re looking for absolute male supremacy. Sex, defined to them as dominion over female bodies, is just their preferred sort of proof. (Link above)

Apparently, Incel stands for a whole political and sexual ideology:

"Incel, the online community of “involuntarily celibate” men radicalized by their shared mistrust of women, has existed on the internet for years. But it wasn’t until Monday, when a man drove a van down a street in Toronto and killed 10 people, that many people knew of its existence.

What makes the attack different from many other forms of terrorism is that incel isn’t an organized militant group united by political or religious beliefs — its main grievance is with women’s ability to choose their own sexual partners. An explainer on the movement from our sister site Vox quotes J.M. Berger, an expert at the International Center for Counter-Terrorism in the Hague: “Misogyny isn’t new, and ideological misogyny isn’t new. Having a distinct movement that is primarily defined by misogyny is [fairly] novel.”

Then, just when I think I have a handle on these roles and definitions, I find this tidbit: "The terms and definitions below are always evolving and changing and often mean different things to different people."

"Evolving and changing," gotta have a damn PhD to keep up with this sex stuff. Guess we have more issues than just my situational celibacy. Nevertheless, my boring straight life remains relatively uncomplicated. Hats off to my other than standard gendered brothers and sisters. If you can keep your life straight, you got no problem with me. (That's a pun, dammit, meaning straight as in ordered, not "straight" straight.)

LGBTQIA...B, C D, E, F, H....indeed.

Humans, infinitely entertaining.

Addendum:

The term "incel" is an acronym for the phrase involuntary celibacy, which was coined rather innocently by a queer female blogger in 1993 but only began representing a movement of male supremacist ideology in recent years. In 2014, Elliot Rodger went on a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, California, using a knife, a gun and his car to kill six people and wound 14 others before taking his own life. In a lengthy video Rodger uploaded to the internet before his murder spree, he blamed his rage on being rejected by women — that is, being involuntarily celibate — and stated his intention to exact retribution for his loneliness on the women who had rejected him and had chosen to have sex with other men. (The incel community refers to such women as Stacys and such men as Chads.)

Like many mass killers, Rodger attracted a following. His attack and accompanying manifesto brought together similarly misogynistic men, such as members of the Pick Up Artist and Black Pill, Red Pill online communities, under the name incels. These self-identified incels tend to be sexually frustrated and believe the world perceives them as beta males. They share a powerful anger toward both the women who reject them and the men who are more sexually successful. Like Minassian did in his Facebook post when referring to the Supreme Gentleman, incels revere Rodger.

According to researchers who follow the movement, the social media platform Reddit's incel subreddit contained 40,000 members before it was shut down in November 2017 because of hate-filled and violent rhetoric that frequently called for the murder and rape of Stacys and Chads. Many incels have relocated to the website 4chan (as Minassian mentioned in his post), which is known for hosting shocking and controversial content. https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/why-it-matters-yet-doesnt-incel-toronto-attacker-terroristhttps://worldview.stratfor.com/article/why-it-matters-yet-doesnt-incel-toronto-attacker-terrorist

“Climate change is not a conceptual or theoretical challenge. The evidence is overwhelming — universities and scientists worldwide agree — that climate change is all too real,” Matthew Rodriquez, California secretary for environmental protection, said in a statement.] https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/california-climate-change-effects-report(Links in original)

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Critics of conservation often portray as a zero sum game, saying trying to conserve stocks of fish will diminish the catches of most fishermen.

Nevertheless as Bubba Cochrane said, depletion of red snapper fishing stocks just a few short years ago threatened the likelihood of all who relied on the snapper for a living.

A catch as catch can system with seasons made captains race to catch as much and as quick as possible as they could. This glutted the market and actually depressed prices. With a new quota system captains could plan their seasons and hopefully get their catch.

Just 15 years ago, over fishing threatened to wipe out red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. This pained me personally because my mother's standard restaurant order was red snapper. You can find few things more delicious than broiled red snapper. They be damn good.

Conservation and common sense saved the fish for all of us.

Under the old management system, commercial fishermen raced to catch all the snapper they could during the government mandated seasons, which some years lasted only a few days. That resulted in a lot of dangerous fishing, wasted fish and huge market swings for customers. Sometimes fresh Gulf snapper was available only a few weeks a year.

The new approach allows commercial fishermen to pace themselves throughout the year, putting less stress on the stock and injecting some predictability into the market. Now, Gulf red snapper are more plentiful than ever, and customers can find fresh snapper at the seafood counter or on the menu nearly year-round.https://www.sharethegulf.org/stories/77

Update: "Often, commercial fishermen are perceived to be a group of people focused on taking as many fish as possible as quickly as possible. This simply isn’t the case. We are business owners, we are problem solvers, but at heart, we are conservationists." (Emphasis added)https://shareholdersalliance.org/who-we-are.php

Just a few years left, please God, and President Dump will become ex-Preznit.

What will we have left of our US constitution?

Most of us are shocked in real time. But the existential question is whether the Low-Bar Presidency ends when Trump’s tenure does. Or will our expectations forever be lowered because of what he has managed to do less than 18 months into office? Will we assume, from here on out, that our politicians lie so cavalierly to us? That they misuse our taxpayer funds for the betterment of their private lives? That they are incapable of meeting the challenges of governance? If so, the costs could be horrifying. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-damage-of-trumps-low-bar-presidency-is-worse-than-you-think

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Say you live on a tree lined street with no garage or you drive the second car in family with one car garage, happy to go to work in your autonomous vehicle, reading your newspaper and sipping your coffee. You push the start button and the sweet engine fails to turnover; you only get a warning light and polite computer voice saying, "You are screwed. You have bird doodoo on one of your Light Detection and Ranging Sensors (LIDAR). Good luck figuring out which one."

OK, made that last one up. Nevertheless, point remains these dream cars depend on functioning sensors. Plus, you wonder how these things can reliably sense stuff like other cars in a driving, tropical FL downpour, which we real men tend to drive on through. You just slow down, pray, turn on your lights, and watch for people ahead braking.

....There are a range of problems with putting a self-driving vehicle through a traditional car wash, experts say.For example, soap residue or water spots could effectively "blind" an autonomous car. A traditional car wash's heavy brushes could jar the vehicle's sensors, disrupting their calibration and accuracy. Even worse, sensors, which can cost over $100,000, could be broken.A self-driving vehicle's exterior needs to be cleaned even more frequently than a typical car because the sensors must remain free of obstructions. Dirt, dead bugs, bird droppings or water spots can impact the vehicle's ability to drive safely....

(S)elf-driving car companies such as Toyota, Aptiv, Drive.AI and Uber described to CNN that they use microfiber cloths along with rubbing alcohol, water or glass cleaner for manual cleanings.

Nowzabout Buffalo after a few feet of snow? Do you want to set your coffee and paper in your car and whip out your cleaner, microfiber cloth, and can of compressed air to clean your sensors before you drive? Self cleaning sensors drive up price keeping vehicles our of hands of the unwashed masses.

Law Professor Jonathan Turley claims that pampering a group of goats lifted the "Billy Goat curse," which perhaps prevented the Cubs from winning it all for several generations. Seems as good an explanation as any. So to lift the curse:

The four goats were rubbed down, feted and pampered. One particularly adorable goat named Neptune was passed around like a goat version of the Adoration of the Magi. When it began to storm, we refused to risk insulting the goats again and brought them into the house. The connections between Cub and goat were so strong that we were told that farm would name the new expected goat Cubbie in celebration.

I have struggled through the years to teach my four kids that being a Cubs fan is character building. It is easy to be a New York Yankees fan and be fed a constant diet of pennants like peanuts. But being a Cubs fan is a test of faith. Indeed, when you spot another Cubs fan, there is an instant bonding. The Cubs stand for the idea that there is something transcendent and liberating in groundless hope. You stand by your team like you stand by your God, your family, your country … in that order.

Now what does this year and the arm of Yu Darvish hold for the Cubs? Grab the beers, boys, and let's enjoy the season, billy goats be damned!

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

If you have a twisted bone in your body, you might like Bloody Penguin Bashing where you get a Yeti to decapitate penguins, aim for landmines, and score points based on how far the severed penguin heads fly.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

At least, this scumbag judge had the decency to retire of his rather misplaced apology. To characterize unwanted touching--grabbing of females' breasts--only rings hollow, self justifying, and deflecting from his personal and moral failings, far above offensiveness of his particular acts

Mistakes my ass; he acted like a lecherous old man entitled by his lifetime appointment to the federal bench, another one of Ronnie Raygun's mistakes. Maybe with a strong mother and 2 cherished sisters, my judgment and actions never stooped to the level described by various women witnesses.

Thank God as She must have taught me better.

[Nine more women say that Alex Kozinski — a high-profile judge who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — subjected them to sexual comments or other conduct, including four who say he touched them inappropriately....The new allegations — which span decades and include not just those who worked for Kozinski but also those who encountered him at events — bring the total number of women accusing the judge of inappropriate behavior to at least 15.]